The present invention relates to a radiation hard vacuum switch and more specifically to a radiation hardened closing switch for a applied between an anode lead and a cathode lead.
Circuit designers require a radiation-hard system to couple a trigger signal into an exclusion region without wires and with several kilovolts of isolation so that a capacitor discharge circuit can be switched. Known exclusion region circuits do not have or meet the radiation hardness requirements. These systems utilize a LED light shining through a long opening to impinge on a silicon photodetector with subsequent amplification of the detected light pulse providing the main switch trigger. Due to the presence of many semiconducting elements in such a light amplification configuration, the resulting system is not radiation hard or insensitive.